


you fell upon me like a star, burning, blinding

by kingslayer (amurgin)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:21:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23852233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amurgin/pseuds/kingslayer
Summary: Beneath the man’s eyes, pointed at him like two daggers, Dimitri is as sheer as lace, as transparent as glass. For once in his life, he feels delicate and fragile, brittle as he starts to break apart with each wicked desire that pumps blood to his heart, sets fire to the muscle, and robs him of his mind.Wandering aimlessly, Dimitri finds hope under the moonlit sky, where the visage of a falling star lights fire to his heart.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc
Kudos: 15





	you fell upon me like a star, burning, blinding

// ✦ //

There are stories.

Stories of skeletons shoved frantically beneath jewel-encrusted, golden altars, of phalanges slipping out at the sound of sermons with a beckoning curl of come-hither. Yellowed paper-bones dig their way out of unmarked graves one blink of an eye at a time, tantalized by the cherubic, chubby-cheeked promise of eternal life. But opulence has never looked so divine and charity has not once tasted as sweet as the blessed wine from the stolen chalice.

Like blood in a cup of bleeding hearts, eyes of ruby and stem of silver—the Goddess, Almighty, takes pity on the modest.

// ✦ //

_Yes_ , there are stories. 

Be it dawn or dusk, the hollow-ways of Garreg Mach coil around each other like worms beneath the ground, like winding vermin, writhing in circles interlocked so tightly the air thins out with each turn. Here, breathing is not to be taken for granted. The further you reach the more certain their chokehold grows. 

On its own, that is hardly enough to stop the truly curious.

Because in that place, where the sun cannot reach to kiss the hearth of the earth, lives a mythology of hushed whispers, of eager lips pressed to the shells of pricked ears, of eyes leaving not a strand of dust unturned as gleaming irises sweep the surroundings clear. Secrets slip from mouth to mouth, making homes inside greenhorn hearts while time keeps trekking on with sluggish steps. _Some_ where, _some_ day, they will go off, but before the bombs can set fire to the church, there is still the lantern to mind. 

Because stories hide in the shadow of a candle’s flicker, behind the quiver of its flame when the mischief of playful drafts threatens its existence. _There,_ stories reside in the thin space between interlocked digits, where lives mingle at the tips of careless, reckless fingers. They author tales of darkness and desire on the soft parchment of skin, inside the groove between thumb and pointer or in the blunt edge of a clavicle, writing them with broad strokes and gentle murmurings. 

Anything can be a story so long as it borrows a breath or two to speak itself alive.

But these are the finest stories. The ones devoid of an audience, composed of a cast of only two stray lovers, the dampness of stone against the sharp edges of a spine, and glowing embers crackling inside the darkness of pupils. 

Truth be told, that is the only real fire that’s ever threatened the proud spires of Garreg Mach; _scandal_ , burning tongues eager to lap up the sacrilege, to uncover the blasphemy of religious zeal by stripping the sacred shroud away with each breathless shudder, each hurried gasp, each secret massacred into silence. 

Believers and heretics alike find solace in the long shadows cast by the back of the Goddess.

// ✦ //

Then, there are histories, herstories, theirstories. 

Faces and places encapsulated in lines of smudged ink. Real people trapped inside paper cages, books and anthologies. Restless names kept sleepless from their beds. Their bodies are dirt beneath the feet, dust layered like ash upon the heads of books, the sills of windows. Harmless until there are too many. Short-lived until they are blown or wiped or swept away. 

Even now, after everything, their lives are kept on display, open to perusal lest you cannot promise, _oh-so-very-kindly_ , to return them to their appointed resting place—now alphabetized and sequenced chronologically—so someone else can borrow them at a later date. 

Countries and antiquities ago, they were promised eternal life by the Goddess or some other divine incarnation (same bullshit dressed up in another robe), but immortality is a cruel joke, a Fool’s Prayer, a whetstone to sharpen the blade, the belief, the blind faith that there is something more to life after death. 

Just one problem; there is no such thing as death. 

Flesh and spirit haunt the world in the echo of a single voice with hundreds of forked tongues, each sharper than the last, and thousands of faces set inside beds of flesh. A son, a brother, a devoted friend. A father. Eyes that cannot be forgotten. 

Dimitri can hear them in the morning, at the peak of the sun, in the hollow of the moon. Worst of all, he cannot _un_ hear them once he has recognized their voice, lent them credence and a place to haunt inside his body, and he cannot shut his ears to the sound of their pleas, their charges and bargains. 

They come to worship at his feet, grovelling lowly for a crumb of bread, _one little bite at life_ , all because Dimitri is the only one blessed enough to hear them. So, with touchless prayers, they bring reverence, hymns to lull him asleep, visions to beset his dreams, and not unlike those faithful sheep, they grow mad with wrath when he won’t martyr himself for their cause.

His is an intimate relationship with those that have been stripped of their flesh, and the all-too-familiar sight of Garreg Mach is a breeding ground for memories of the past. A festering wound that stings and throbs and burns. 

He remembers, but not well enough. 

People he is no longer sure are still alive, were ever alive, come to him nonetheless, like apparitions torn out of the pages of bibles, angel-wings and feather-touches. 

Revelation is a cruel mistress. 

// ✦ //

_A memory._

Again, Dimitri is five-years-younger, all boyish charm and bruised knuckles, scuffed wrists stashed inside long sleeves. In vain does he tug his cuffs _down, down, down_ when there is no place left to run. But he tries regardless, smiles regardless, as though he can will the ghosts away with mere pleasantries. 

_(He will not make the same mistake.)_

For now, there are still reasons left to hope for a little something more—Felix and Sylvain and Ingrid. The Professor. The whole of Faerghus, if nothing else at all. Anyone and everyone but himself. And Dimitri does not once think to stop here, continuing his search for other causes to immolate his body for, to crucify himself for, bleed himself dry for, give meaning to all of _their_ sacrifices. 

Wandering down this way did he stumble upon one such raison d’etre, a star so bright it eclipsed everything beneath it, swallowing the world in a flutter of long lashes and full lips, a flurry of a cape as white as the young névé of Faerghus. 

_(But this sin he will gladly champion, again, again, again.)_

It is at this point in time that certain stories begin to lay siege to the walls of the monastery, rumours of a black hole beneath Garreg Mach, a hidden basement one could not have hoped to wander into, _if_ they ever had the courage to venture down below and _if_ they possessed the tools necessary to make sense of the architecture of thousands of years past. 

Dimitri, not a daredevil and most certainly not a believer, found little purpose in entertaining gossip. Yet, before long, neither he nor the rest of Garreg Mach could turn a blind eye, forced to watch the skeletons dig themselves back out of the trenches, and never able to intervene. 

People gone missing; stores of food emptied by bandits unseen by the eyes of the Goddess; bodies of strangers turned up with mangled faces, unrecognizable even beneath the dirt and grime and chunks of flesh flaking off. And the rumours, _yes_ , the stories run amok like wildfire, growing fatter and more ripe inside each new mouth that took it upon itself to sow a pestilence of the soul in every believer at the monastery. In vain did the Archbishop pass night upon night restless, her loyal knights sent to dispel the ghosts from every corner of the monastery. 

But all of that is beyond the point. 

_This_ is a story of a King in search of his crown. A memory of a jewel’s shine, his only guiding light. 

Yet, what brilliant a gem it is, so delicate and exquisite, with edges neatly filed and polished into sharp angles. Simply laying his eyes upon it hurts, alerting a melancholy within Dimitri that quickly surges to an insurmountable height, and even so, he does not dare avert his eyes lest he might miss his only shot at witnessing a miracle of the Goddess' design. 

_(Except he was never hers, never anyone’s.)_

Everything around him bleeds itself into nothingness, suddenly overcome by a silence so thick it vibrates inside his ears like the drone of a beehive. Nothing else holds weight any longer, neither meaning nor purpose, only Dimitri and the one beyond the tall grasses. 

_Surely, it is impossible._

That the world could stop for a single man seems to him the stuff of fiction, and yet, _and yet_ , Dimitri is left breathless in the chilly sigh of the night’s wind.

He knows every face that has ever graced the halls of Garreg Mach, alive _and_ those less so. _That_ much he is certain of. And still, here is this stranger, a most beautiful and handsome man, moonkissed halo enveloping the crown of his head, wisteria vines and prickle thorns loosened by the breeze. His tresses ride the waves of a winterish breeze as though the piercing sting of its chill is nothing more than a child’s breath upon his skin. He is as unbothered as Dimitri finds himself bothered, troubled, haunted by a tableau torn out of the heaven of a Bible he does not believe in, one he _cannot_ be compelled to believe in. 

_This_ is a phantom Dimitri has not yet had the pleasure of meeting. 

But the night is as young as his affections, infantine, like flower buds adorned with the shimmering pearls of dew. The Goddess does not reach her hand, but her pity for him catches the eye of the stranger standing, alone, beneath the frosted skies of a novel winter. 

Starbursts across the horizon leave behind freckled marks where Dimitri’s hot breath, already too fragile, fractures into a sharp gasp that gets snatched inside his throat, plucks his vocal cords into a symphony of nonsensical sounds—grunts of awe and standing _Os_. He swallows dryly, measuring the distance between their bodies in the paces it takes his heart to beat each step between them, and despite knowing his legs will not budge from where his knees have stiffened, Dimitri finds himself making wishes upon hanging stars that he might get the chance to see this new world with closer eyes.

The sharp-toothed curvature of the man’s mouth unravels to divulge its secrets, intentions laced with a cruelty entirely too divine, one that steals love-letters out of Dimitri. Meanwhile, the soft trickle of his gaze washes off the bow of those foreign lips, sketching out their full-bodied shape. Beneath the man’s eyes, pointed at him like two daggers, Dimitri is as sheer as lace, as transparent as glass. For once in his life, he feels delicate and fragile, brittle as he starts to break apart with each wicked desire that pumps blood to his heart, sets fire to the muscle, and robs him of his mind. A finger, long-nailed and slender, comes up in a warning, silencing Dimitri without a single sound as the man casts his gaze to the above. 

It is impossible to resist the siren’s call, so Dimitri follows, young and gullible, to where the Goddess betrays her visage. 

Like the veil of a new bride, shuddering in small breaths, a symphony of peach pinks and mint blues lights up the ether. Strokes of colour, both thick and thin, meld together, weaved by hidden fingers into a tapestry that lays moon and stars to sleep together. Then come the purples, blooms of aster twinkling shyly as they bloom, their petals quivering with life anew, and Dimitri feels at peace. He feels small and finite in the vast, great blue, but tranquil, also. His mind is lulled to sleep by the bouquet of northern lights laid onto his head, a crown of flowers that makes him feel more a king than anything else has, ever will, and the voices of phantoms whispering dreams into his ears grow silent under the twinkling melodies of winter. 

His body is made holy by the beauty of the world around him, by the sight of a most beautiful, breathtaking stranger Dimitri finds himself sharing this secret with. Yet, all he wishes is for a name to put to those eyes, those lips, that solemn face that will come to haunt him every subsequent midnight, like clockwork. 

And just like that, he is gone. Gone in the blink of an eye, in the stutter of a heart, gone in the moment it takes Dimitri to pick himself back up from where he’s left hanging to dry. He is dropped from the sky, eyes scouring the earth for a glimpse, a trace, a shadow of proof that he can place all his faith in. 

_(Where did you go.)_

The Goddess will not turn to look back. 

Dimitri is left stranded all on his own. 

// ✦ //

Five years have passed thusly, heavy and iron-ladden, carved one by one into Dimitri’s armour with swords and lances tipped with rust. He is older, wiser to the truths of the world, and though he is down one eye, life has never been clearer before. 

Garreg Mach is barren now, save for the ghosts haunting his head and the Imperial forces sent to hunt them down. It’s unfortunate, _really_ , that what that translates to is a zealous search for Dimitri, renegade King of Faerghus, uncle-killer. 

Of course, Dimitri has not committed avunculicide. As far as _he_ can tell, anyway. Yet here he is regardless, carrying his sentence out with solitary steps, guided by the howls of the departed. Their disembodied voices echo from the crypts below, amplified by the cavernous hallways leading to the basement. Dimitri has never wandered far underground, but he’s feeling daring tonight, spurred on by the chthonic chorus inside his head. Whispers of treasures buried with their corpses, of nonpareil riches and jewels of every shine, tempt him, but what sets fire to Dimitri’s steps is nothing as fleeting as luxury. What he wants is a place to hang his head, to lay his weapon down at the foot of the Goddess’ altar.

So, down he goes the winding rabbit hole, down the chipped stone steps and through the fusty palisades, abandoning light at every corner until all he is left with is the open flame of the torch he carries—a last bastion of humanity foregone in a life of old.

The last thing he expects to find, there, buried in the rubble of history, hidden amongst the vestigial bones of Garreg Mach, is a fallen star, five years old and burning no less brightly. 

Its flare is burning, blinding, sending Dimitri stumbling behind before he can brace himself on the stiff heels of his feet. The torch falls limply out of his hold, extinguishing on the damp tiling below. His arm comes up instinctively to fill the gaps, a barrage of metal plates and flesh, but little can be done to blot out the light that creeps through the cracks in his defense. One eye and even that one is quickly rendered useless, leaving Dimitri with all but two of his senses. All the same, he is no less dangerous. 

Abruptly, his free hand reaches behind, grasping the stock of Areadbhar tightly. His fingers are resolute, not a single tremor of doubt in his otherwise shaky hands. Dimitri does not think twice about killing the Goddess. He has no regrets for losing the life of her creation. A snarl builds heavy on his tongue, rumbling in his throat, and with a surefire breath, he draws the lance forward.

But the head of Areadhbar does not make it past the high of noon, stopping dead in its tracks when the whizzing of a blade whirls past Dimitri’s head, missing his jugular by a second (intentionally) without failing to nick a few wisps of his hair. 

By the time Dimitri’s eye adjusts to the darkness, his defenses have been compromised, the sharp blow of a knee finding cradle in his abdomen. His spine bends at the neck in a sharp crescent, body recoiling, going slack for the one second it takes Areadhbar to falter to the ground below, somewhere at the side of the wasted torch. His assailant is quick, though, and his leg even quicker as it delivers another blow to Dimitri’s chest, this time sending him cleanly a few steps behind and onto his ass. Before he can fall any further, there is the prick of iron stinging at his throat, warm and wet where blood seeps through. 

_“Seems to me I’ve caught myself some royalty.”_ The man’s lips shatter in a grin, shards of enamel that get wedged inside Dimitri like pieces of a broken mirror, jagged and uneven, carving him away one chunk at a time until all that remains is an ugly distortion. And it throbs inside his ears, makes them drone lowly until his heart does a leap and falls into the pit of his stomach. 

_"You know me."_ Not a question, no. The man’s eyes do not waver.

 _"Not one bit. What I know is the darkness within you."_ How bold and striking he is, conceding a truth that has plagued Dimitri’s life with such brutal honesty. How bold and beautiful. “ _Now, what might you be up to, little Princeling?”_

Dimitri softens into clay, beneath the fingertips of a man he knows only the face of, one who gives rise to an unspeakable flame inside his chest. With eyes that burn Heather purple and gleam silver, like the smoke of frankincense, his are features distinct even among murky memories. His grip, too, is searing upon the skin of Dimitri’s wrist, so harsh and so tight as it draws melodies out of his bloodstream. 

Within the hands of this stranger, he is pliable, paper-thin, just waiting to be folded into someone else’s dreams, and, in an instant, Dimitri surrenders.

 _“Pardon my intrusion, but I seem to have lost my way.”_ He is honest to a fault, even now.

 _“That you have.”_ The man’s laughter is a gust of wind that brushes against his lips so faintly and sweetly it has Dimitri clinging to it as though it were a secret. He can smell the phantom traces of lavender and honey as long tresses curl up in solace against the stranger’s cheeks. _“This is no place for someone of your…status.”_

_“Yet here I am.”_

Dimitri pushes his luck, pushes into the kiss of the knife that nips at the skin of his neck. He presses onwards, single-minded for the first time in years, though for what reason he cannot possibly tell. Still, it earns him a mighty prize for his efforts.

 _“How reckless of you, your Majesty. Have you not heard? ”_ When his lower lip curls underneath his teeth, Dimitri seizes the glint of silver in his sights, the points of fangs capturing his attention so greedily. A wave of shivers descends his back, and he perks up beneath the fear while blood surges in his veins, electric. Pathetic. “ _T_ _here are rats in the sewers of Garreg Mach. Mighty filthy and dangerous things.”_

_“I am no King to you. So, why refer to me as such?”_

What he wants, _truly_ wants, is to be conquered. 

The stranger fixes him with his eyes, undressing him one poor habit, one embarrassing admission at a time, until Dimitri has nothing left to offer. And fangs multiply, one-by-one, until he can make out his reflection in a full-toothed smile. 

_“Because it’s fun.”_ It’s his tongue that comes out now, snaking from within the gaps in his teeth. His mouth parts to make way for it, and Dimitri’s eyes unabashedly fall upon its tip, following the curvature of the arc it maps over the bow of his lips, long and drawn-out. At its peak, the arrow comes loose, and Dimitri gets shot through the heart. _“I’m sure you understand, don’t you?”_

 _“I am afraid I do not.”_ When he pulls away, dagger and all, Dimitri follows, closing the gap between them with his own body. Sacrifices mean little when you are desperate, and that is what his body is; lamb upon the altar, bound and ripe, ready to be taken. _“Perhaps you might show me, so I can better understand?”_

It’s a pity Dimitri does not know that he is not the only one making sacrifices.

The man leans back forward, slipping to his right side, where Dimitri's eye cannot hope to follow. There, the heat of their bodies is all he has to go off of, but just that is more than enough. 

_“How much are you willing to pay?”_

Dimitri shudders, his breath hitching in his throat, and a low growl rises from within him. The thighs framing his hips tighten as the man grinds gently, so very unkindly against him. His hands are clenched shut, but he makes no move. It is not his place to touch. 

_“Oh, you may have everything.”_ He breathes out shakily, yet the tone of his voice is level. _This_ is a King. _“And in exchange, all I ask is that you call me by my name.”_

 _“How fitting of a King, to think you have the right to be making rules in someone else’s kingdom.”_ Still, he does not sound displeased. On the contrary, Dimitri is blessed once again by the crystalline sound of his laughter. _“Lucky for you, I’ve always liked myself a man with guts. Makes the breaking all the more fun.”_

He affords himself a moment to ponder, eyes dropping to settle on the place Dimitri feels most restrained. 

_“So be it. Dimitri”_ , and, as he takes his time to lay the name out before him one sound at a time, with each strike of his tongue, another burn singes itself onto Dimitri’s already-scarred skin. 

_“And yours?”_ His eyes soften into a plea as he props himself up on his elbows, eager for another scrap, just one more bite. 

Somewhere outside, a wolf gets caught in a trap. The pack laments the loss with blood-curdling howls. 

The man’s face splinters.

_“Yuri. You can call me Yuri.”_

**Author's Note:**

> The pretty boy could use some breaking. So could Yuri ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> You can find me, as always, on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/peachieyums)


End file.
